Incarceration conditions

Incarceration conditions in both military and IPS facilities continue to be extremely harsh and, as noted, have resulted in deaths. The entire security inmate population of prisoners, detainees, administrative detainees and detainees under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, adults, and minors, including those incarcerated before October 2023, lives in conditions that had already been deliberately and significantly worsened before October 7, 2023, and even more so since. Starvation and poor nutrition, severe overcrowding, lack of basic hygiene, and medical neglect create an unbearable daily reality.

Following a series of official inspection visits to IPS facilities, the Public Defender’s Office (Hebrew), a statutory government agency under the Ministry of Justice, issued a warning regarding the substantial deterioration in incarceration conditions overall, and for security detainees specifically, categorically describing them as “inhumane.” Nevertheless, even after the Public Defender released its report in 2025, the Israeli government and official state authorities continued their policy of abuse, fully ignoring the findings, in part by extending the Incarceration Emergency Declaration (Hebrew), which allows for major overcrowding, evading proper implementation of the High Court’s instructions regarding inmates’ nutrition, and withholding adequate treatment for the infectious diseases that are spreading in detention facilities.

Further reading:

B’Tselem: Living Hell, January 2026

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, HaMoked – Center for the Defence of the Individual, Parents Against Child Detention and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, shadow report to the UN Committee Against Torture, November 2025: Torture as State Policy: Abuse of Palestinian Detainees in Israel and Absence of Accountability Since October 7, 2023

Starvation

Security inmates, including children, are given poor-quality food in insufficient quantities, in keeping with Minister Ben Gvir’s declared policy (Hebrew). Conditions have deteriorated further since the war broke out in October 2023. Many inmates have reported suffering as a result of daily hunger and significant weight loss. Food deprivation and poor nutrition had severe health implications, sometimes leading to death.

In September 2025, Israel’s High Court of Justice accepted a petition (Hebrew) submitted about a year and a half earlier by ACRI and Gisha, and ruled that the IPS is legally required to provide security prisoners and detainees with basic living conditions, including food of sufficient quantity and composition to preserve their health. The majority opinion found cause for concern that the current supply of food fails to meet the legal standard, and accordingly, the judgment clarified the state’s obligations and set out a series of measures the IPS must adopt. However, in the months since the judgment was handed down, information and testimonies that have been collected have indicated that no significant change has been made in inmates’ nutrition, and their situation has not improved. At the request of the petitioning organizations, the court issued a clarification to the IPS that the judgment requires improving the nutrition of all inmates, not only monitoring and treatment for individuals whose body mass has dropped significantly. Given the narrow interpretation the IPS has given the judgement, and concerns that the hunger will continue, on April 23, 2026 the High HCJ issued a decision in contempt-of-court proceedings, stating the IPS must interpret the ruling in a manner that enables providing security inmates with additional food according to individual needs.

Further reading:

Association for Civil Rights in Israel: End the Policy of Starving Security Prisoners

Withholding medical care

Physicians for Human Rights Israel has identified medical neglect as a key factor in the spike in prison deaths, finding medical neglect in six out of 10 autopsy reports reviewed. In other cases, the lack of medical care resulted in irreversible health consequences, including amputations and physical deterioration due to chronic illnesses that did not receive timely treatment.

The inhumane incarceration conditions, including starvation, prolonged shackling, overcrowding, and lack of basic hygiene, and the severe, routine physical violence against inmates, all create or aggravate injuries or chronic illnesses and serious, sometimes life-threatening conditions. Nevertheless, prisoners’ medical conditions are either ignored or receive late and inadequate treatment.

The human rights organizations’ report to the UN Committee Against Torture notes, based on testimonies, that incarcerated women, including pregnant women, did not receive hygiene products or access to gynecological care.

Massive overcrowding leads to the spread of infectious diseases, chiefly scabies, an agonizing but treatable condition. Contrary to the statements given by the IPS in a petition filed regarding this issue (and dismissed based on the IPS’s assurances), the issue is not being addressed as required to eradicate the disease, and infections among inmates continue. For example, according to a B’Tselem report, in November 2025 a lawyer was denied a meeting with his client, an inmate at Ketziot Prison, on the grounds that the entire prison population in three wards had scabies. As of April 2026, information collected regularly by PHRI indicates mass outbreaks of scabies and an infectious intestinal disease at Megiddo, Ofer and Gilboa prisons.

In March 2025, Waleed Ahmad, a 17-year-old, died at Megiddo Prison. He was arrested about six months earlier, healthy and in good physical condition. An autopsy revealed that at the time of his death he was suffering from starvation, colitis and scabies. Nonetheless, the court, despite finding that he was “likely starved,” closed the investigation file in March 2026.

Overcrowding

While overcrowding in Israeli prisons is not new, the crisis has worsened significantly since the war broke out in October 2023, with no substantial relief even following the ceasefire and the release of about 2,000 Palestinian inmates in October 2025. As of the end of March 2026, according to a Ministry of National Security report (Hebrew), about 93% of security inmates are held in conditions that do not comply with the HCJ ruling on minimum living standards, with many sleeping on the floor. Severe overcrowding has led, among other things, to a scabies epidemic.

In October 2023, ACRI, PHRI, and PCATI filed an HCJ petition seeking to revoke the emergency order permitting prison administrators to have detainees sleep on the floor and maintain unlimited overcrowding during the incarceration emergency. The Court dismissed the petition immediately, without a response from the State, stating, among other things, that the order had been issued temporarily for a relatively short time and that the emergency was expected to stabilize. However, two and a half years later, most recently on March 15, 2026 (Hebrew), the Israeli government continues to extend the incarceration emergency temporary order and the orders issued pursuant to it, to allow major overcrowding and for inmates to sleep on the floor, in a departure from legal provisions.

Human rights organizations updated a longstanding and still pending petition on the matter to demand a solution. At the State’s request, the hearing (Hebrew) has been repeatedly postponed, and aside from expressing discomfort with the situation the justices have so far refrained from taking significant steps. This has left massive overcrowding, as a policy choice, continuing in 2026.